Depaul UK scoops Excellence award

The homelessnesss charity applied for the prestigious CSE award – which was instigated by the Government’s Cabinet Office – to drive up quality and improve the standard of customer service for its clients.

The process was a challenging one with 57 components, but assessor Hugh Keachie, of the Cabinet Office-approved Centre for Assessment, found Depaul UK was “fully compliant” in all areas and awarded “plus” commendations in eight of them.

Depaul UK Chief Executive Martin Houghton-Brown said: “It is tremendous that we have done so well in this tough assessment. It shows we are an excellent provider of services in the homelessness sector and puts us in a very strong position to retain services and win new contracts.”

He then made a series of site visits where he questioned focus groups comprising staff, clients and partners.

Maria Emerson-Smith, Quality and Compliance Manager, said: “It is great news that we have achieved this quality mark, but this is just the start. Over the next three years the assessment will go on, ensuring that we maintain standards and continually improve.”

Depaul UK is a national youth homelessness charity that works to provide and support more than 125,000 bed-nights a year to homeless and vulnerable young people and has helped more than 63,000 people since it was founded in 1989. Depaul UK works with more than 3,700 young people a year.

The charity also runs a network of 33 Nightstop emergency accommodation services. The network is supported by players of People’s Postcode Lottery among other donors. The Nightstop model of support is unique because it is built around trained volunteer hosts who give up a spare room in their home to accommodate a young person for a short period of time until their housing crisis is resolved by Depaul staff and other agencies.

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